A Situation Study by Woodside Global Associates

Introduction

Individuals scattered all around the entire world join forces in a virtual workshop to generate a task strategy. How do you give absolutely everyone a sensation of quick, reside participation? How do you keep them engaged? The reply-construction the workshop about three ideas:

Visualization of concepts: Elements of the task strategy are captured on sticky notes and exhibited on a flipchart
Simultaneous participation: All members produce tips in real time, as they would in an real conference place
Prosperous expertise: Irrespective of physical area, absolutely everyone is energetic each via audio and visually

The three principles arrive into play in a digital workshop leveraging venture administration best techniques, web conferencing with Cisco WebEx, and an innovative application software. As the members make tips for the task prepare, they sort them into an software shared on their pc screens and print them regionally on sticky (3M Post-it) notes. The notes are then pasted on flipcharts, obvious to the whole group-equally domestically and remotely. The undertaking program normally takes form as the group discusses the ideas printed on the notes and moves them about on the flipcharts. The ultimate sequences of notes are scanned into Microsoft Excel or Undertaking, exactly where they are good-tuned into a coherent undertaking prepare. At the conclusion of the workshop, the prepare is distributed electronically to all.

Preliminary concerns

The placing

This circumstance review describes a workshop executed in early 2011 at a division of a key manufacturer of communications and details engineering products. The function of the workshop is to safe broad acceptance of a venture plan between a group of 30 undertaking stakeholders dispersed more than numerous spots. The undertaking requires a reorganization of the payment structure for workers. In get to optimize the active engagement of the stakeholders in building the plan, the workshop organizers strive to produce an environment of experience-to-encounter conversation regardless of regardless of whether the stakeholders are nearby or remote.

Traditional methods

Brainstorming teams have a decision of two well-known approaches.

Approach 1 (nearby crew). The team gathers in a meeting place. As the members appear up with concepts, they write them on sticky notes these kinds of as Post-its. The notes are pasted on a wall or a flipchart and moved close to. Once all the tips have been submitted and requested into a plan, a single of the contributors kinds up the notes in the appropriate order from the flipchart into Microsoft Term, Excel, or Task. Right after the typing is concluded, the electronic file is dispersed to the other team associates.

Sticky notes are a basic and successful visual device to aid the dialogue at workshops. Even so, the closing typing is less complicated said than accomplished. Typing up a few hundred Publish-it notes is a strain on the typist’s wrists and eyes. Attempting to decipher scribbled notes is as tiny fun as placing them again in buy in circumstance some tumble off the flipchart. No question it usually normally takes a whilst ahead of the entire crew can see the benefits of their collective labor get there in their electronic inbox.

Yet another disadvantage of brainstorming with Put up-its is that the treatment can be used only at 1 bodily place. Group associates who dial into the session by cellphone can’t see the notes. This restrictions their capability to take part in the dialogue. This is why teams that collaborate remotely generally resorts to Technique 2.

Approach two (remote crew). Staff members be part of a net conferencing session, for example by means of WebEx. As they communicate out their tips, a delegated person enters them into Word, Excel or Project. The file is shared, so all can observe the entries accrue. But watching is a passive exercise. While waiting for their turn to talk or for the tips to get typed up, some members disengage to check their electronic mail, get the newest inventory estimates, or daydream. With the typist inevitably failing to keep up with the flow of suggestions in real time, the meeting progresses little by little and the imaginative enthusiasm is dampened. This is a considerably cry from the intuitive Publish-it technique, the place no 1 requirements to hold out for their flip to paste or transfer a note on a flipchart.

The very best of two worlds

The limits of both methods are a element for the undertaking preparing workshop. The contributors are dispersed in excess of a number of areas. A group of fourteen assembles in a large conference space in San Jose, California. Ten other folks gather in a more compact area in Raleigh, North Carolina. The remaining six are becoming a member of from numerous other spots. With so several remote individuals, the Publish-it brainstorming method does not appear to be practical. Yet a discussion primarily based completely on WebEx will not actively engage the team as necessary. Unless a way can be located to emulate Put up-it notes in excess of the telephone or Web, there looks to be no efficient way to perform the workshop, quick of flying all the contributors in-understandably, not a viable option.

Fortunately, the predicament is fixed by way of a software-based remedy that places the usefulness of Publish-it notes in the hands of all the contributors, no subject the place they are positioned. The resolution is brought by NxtNote, an application for remote collaboration with a potential to virtualize the actual physical atmosphere of a regional crew conference. With NxtNote, the individuals kind their ideas-e.g., for task deliverables-into the application. With a click of a button, every single notion is then printed on a Submit-it be aware, which is pasted on 1 of the flipcharts established up in the conference rooms at which the workshop is taking location. This method resembles the way hand-prepared notes would be managed-with one important distinction. With NxtNote, the notes are typed. This can make them simpler not only to go through, but also to manipulate. A duplicate of each observe is retained electronically soon after it is printed.

The electronic copy can be formed to appear just like a paper Put up-it. But as opposed to the paper observe, an digital one particular can be moved into purposes this sort of as Microsoft Excel or Project and shared remotely in excess of the World wide web. In influence, NxtNote creates a virtual flipchart on which notes can be manipulated (moved or modified) with a mouse and keyboard on a display screen obvious to all workshop individuals. The digital flipchart could be edited to mirror the bodily one particular, or it may possibly be the principal flipchart used in the workshop. Possibly way, NxtNote overcomes the downsides of geographical dispersion in that it enables all workshop contributors, neighborhood or distant, to consider the very same edge of an powerful brainstorming resource.

The dispersed workshop

The workshop is divided into two sessions. In every single, NxtNote is utilized in conjunction with teleconferencing tool WebEx.

Groundwork session

For the duration of the groundwork session, contributors convene in WebEx to lay down the venture fundamentals. Given that NxtNote is an outgrowth of a undertaking management methodology, it offers greatest-exercise equipment for this period of a venture as effectively. Using the tables provided in Excel spreadsheet, the contributors discuss the flexibility matrix, lay down the scope in / scope out definitions, and outline the venture aspects: deliverables, tasks, and milestones.

Although every person is seeing on their screens, a selected particular person enters the info created during the dialogue into the spreadsheet. Following the groundwork session is over, the individual employs the details to create acceptable options in NxtNote, so that the software is prepared for the up coming session-establishing a comprehensive task prepare.

Venture planning periods

When the WebEx relationship is working and all thirty members have dialed in, they are divided into two teams, every operating on a part (“observe”) of the undertaking program in a breakout session. The 1st group is physically gathered in San Jose, with a cluster of contributors joining remotely. The function on the second track is assigned to the group in Raleigh with one more remote cluster. Paper flipcharts and Submit-it printers are set up equally in San Jose and Raleigh. Sheets of printer paper with Submit-it notes shade-coded for deliverables (purple), responsibilities (environmentally friendly), and milestones (yellow) are provided at the two areas.

Each and every group discusses the operate to be concluded on their part of the venture. Person associates generate notes with deliverables, responsibilities, and milestones by entering them into NxtNote, print them to a local Put up-it printer, and paste them onto the flipchart. Aside from the text of a observe, its creator specifies the conclude date and the duration of the item, its owner, and its kind: deliverable, job, or milestone.  

Modification and elimination of copy or incorrect Submit-its are also managed by way of NxtNote. Considering that several staff associates can include, modify, or delete things in NxtNote concurrently, there is no need to wait around for one’s switch in get to use the software and print out a Submit-it.

As pasted Put up-its are reviewed by the group, they are moved about into the preferred configuration. Sooner or later, they are organized into a task routine.

Remote contributors in breakout periods participate in the discussion by dialing in. They enter notes remotely into NxtNote and send out them for printing on Put up-it notes to the San Jose or Raleigh printer. Considering that the distant contributors are not present in front of a flipchart, they cannot contact, paste, or move the scraps of paper. But they can participate and co-direct the action on the flipchart as they watch it by means of a digital camera transmitting photos from the conference space via WebEx. A regular net cam constructed into a Computer may not have the imaging power to make the specifics on the flipchart sufficiently seen. To defeat this limitation, greater-resolution electronic cameras are employed.

At the finish of the breakout sessions, each and every staff chief-a single in San Jose and the other in Raleigh-scans the Put up-it notes from the paper flipchart. A unique NxtNote scanner is utilized for this task. What is the purpose of scanning? When notes are typed into NxtNote in purchase to be printed on Put up-its, they are saved consecutively in the NxtNote historical past file, in the get of their entry. But for the duration of the breakout sessions, the Put up-its with the notes have been rearranged on the flipcharts in accordance to dependencies, timing, and other relational details. In buy to reproduce the closing configuration of the notes electronically, the placement of the entries in NxtNote background could be manually adjusted so that it corresponds to their buy on the paper flipchart. But the handbook technique is tiresome and mistake-inclined. NxtNote eradicates it through scanning. Although a hand-held NxtNote scanner is passed along the rows or columns of Put up-its, the notes-presently stored in NxtNote history-are routinely entered into an industry-normal software program software in the buy of scanning. If the notes are scanned systematically, their sequencing on the flipchart will be replicated in the software in the precise method. Many sorts of applications can be employed to hold the sequences of scanned notes-for illustration, Microsoft Term, Excel, Undertaking, or Visio.

Each notice in NxtNote carries a special identifier, produced routinely when the notice is produced. When the observe is printed on a Publish-it, the identifier is coded into the bar code appearing in the upper element.

In the venture organizing workshop, the suggested application selected for scanning the notes is Microsoft Task. The leaders of every monitor of the undertaking take flip scanning Put up-it notes from their respective breakout periods into a one instance of Project. This procedure is managed by passing handle from one chief to one more. Soon after a bit of manual rearrangement at the finish, the venture plan in Undertaking is all set to be viewed by all the workshop members as they return to the primary session soon after the breakouts.  

In the Gantt chart view of Undertaking, the scanned notes look as rows of text to the still left. In the chart to the correct, they are represented as horizontal bars. The coloration of the bars corresponds to the shade of the Publish-it notes: purple for deliverables, environmentally friendly for duties, and yellow for milestones. Seeing the chart on the monitor shared in WebEx by the workshop coordinator (in our scenario, one particular of the group leaders), the workshop contributors conclude the project plan as they specify dependencies, agency up the dates, and readjust the duration of the task bars. The approach would be really equivalent experienced the groups decide to use Excel instead of Venture.

When the workshop is wrapped up, the closing project strategy is sent to all the individuals.

Final feelings

Even with the geographical dispersion of the crew, the workshop has worked like a aspiration. Its good results proved the validity of our assumptions. 1st, the team dialogue was certainly facilitated by the visualization of concepts by means of Submit-it notes. 2nd, by possessing the capability to generate the notes concurrently with any other crew member, everyone participated in the brainstorming stage of the discussion totally and in actual time. By transposing an successful regional tool into cyberspace, the use of NxtNote manufactured it attainable to extend the Submit-it strategy to distant individuals. At the very same time, it allowed to conquer the limitation of net conferencing, in which the handle of the display screen is delegated to a solitary particular person while all the others are viewing passively. Ultimately, yoursite.com of a scanner decreased the guide overhead of retyping and rearranging info. Thanks to the operation of NxtNote and the structured method it assisted build, a intricate plan prepare was produced in a handful of several hours with all the participants actively engaged. The plan was all set for distribution minutes following the summary of the workshop.

There was no retyping, no missed items, and no misinterpretation of what has been talked about. A last believed… Even although the workshop explained in this examine associated a physically scattered team, the efficiencies of NxtNote can also be realized inside a local group. NxtNote places structured venture management procedures at the team’s disposal, no matter exactly where its customers are found. And anywhere they are, automatic printing and scanning of Post-its will always defeat composing them by hand and typing them up.